An Uncomplicated Life Blog: 5 Lessons Learned In My First Year Of Blogging

Friday, April 17, 2015

5 Lessons Learned In My First Year Of Blogging

I've been blogging for a year now. While I'm far from a pro, I have learned some important things over the past 365 days. Most of them were learned the hard way, either by mistakes or after months of doing something "wrong"/not doing something.

Allow me to share my biggest lessons with you.



Five Things I've Learned In My Year Of Blogging

1) Develop your "voice" and show your persona. Let your personality come out in your posts! People follow you because they like YOU. I follow a large handful of bloggers, and even when they post about something I'm not interested in, I still read their post and comment because I like who they are and want to support them. So show some of your quirky personality! In blog posts, social media, comments on other blogs, etc.

2) Promote your blog by promoting others. I failed at this big time for my first six months. I had about 11 twitter followers and only used it to link my blog accounts. When I started to interact with other bloggers, show some of my personality in my tweets (see #1) and retweeted other bloggers posts, my following exploded. You get promoted by promoting others, so share the blog love! It will come back to you, I promise.

3) Edit your images. I also failed big time at this. I'd snap a pic with my iPhone and post it directly as it was to my post. FAIL. Photography and images are just as important as writing and text in blogging. Sign up for an online editing site (I use picmonkey), adjust the exposure and sharpness of your pics. Crop them if necessary. Add other effects and edits if needed. Yes, this takes time and there's a learning curve, but once I started consistently doing it, I not only got a massive increase in free product offers from companies, I started to get sponsored post (read: actual $$$) offers too! Even if you're not looking to make money blogging, edit your photos so that your best pics are floating around the interwebs.

4) Be authentic. Write posts that are true to you. I swear blog readers (myself included) can sense BS! Nothing makes me click away faster than an unauthentic post. Here's some truth: I thought I might do some beauty blogging. Before having Henry, I always wore makeup, loved playing with it, my hair was always curled or "done" in some way. But now? Aint nobody got time for that! I have an hour to myself, and that hour is going to be working out. So I can authentically talk about yoga or barre class, but any posts about lip sticks or how to get barrel waves to stay in your hair for three days would be a joke coming from me.

5) Write the post you're scared to write. Then publish it. My most popular posts were the ones I was the most scared to hit "publish" on.  They were personal, or opinionated, or both, but I was always nervous about the response I would get.

I hope that helps some of you newbie bloggers and I'm sure it resonates with some of you old pros! Do you have any other advice to share? I wanna hear it in the comments!

Per usual, I'm linking up with Amanda, Karli, Friday 5, Miranda and H54F!

13 comments:

  1. Love this! I've been blogging for about a year and a half, and these are lessons I've learned along the way, too. Being authentic is one of the most important ones, I think. You're right, people can definitely catch the BS! You can so tell when someone just started a blog because they want to make money. I love finding authentic bloggers I can relate to! Those are the blogs I'll come back to again and again.

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  2. Amen to #5! I have done that more and more recently and you're right, they are my most popular posts. Yeah some people may not like them, but most do and it has really helped my following.
    Great lessons learned my dear!
    Have a great weekend!!

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  3. I have yet to do #5 and I really want to!! I'm so glad to have "met" you in this blogging world girl! xo, Biana -BlovedBoston

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  4. Yay!!

    All of these are great lessons. Blogging has such a learning curve and it's never ending.

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  5. Great points! I'm so bad at the image/pictures aspect - I'm just not talented in that area at all!

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  6. These are all great! #2 was a game-changer for me. It's so much more fun to be inclusive. I think I always hesitated to promote other people because I didn't want to seem like I was stalking them online. It gets a lot easier when you've gone through those initial connections with people, then it just feels like talking with girlfriends.

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  7. All of these are 100% straight truth especially that last one! I find that the posts when I literally have palpitations when I hit that publish button are the ones that end up having the most comments because it gets people thinking and talking! You know I love your straight honesty! I have been loving your recent pictures!

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  8. love this post girly and totally agree with it. i tend to stop following bloggers that don't share any of their personality because i just forget about them! it's horrible but it's true.

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  9. Love this post! I'm far from an expert but even I've found them to all be true. I completely agree about #1! I read some blogs that I can't put my finger on what I like about the posts, but I think it's just that I really like the person for whatever reason. And #5 is along the same lines...it's scary putting things in black and white sometimes, but I'd rather have people stick around because they liked what I said, or at least appreciated that I had something important to say (even if it's only like 2 people), than just be another blog full of nonsense.

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  10. Yes yes yes! It's insane how important images really are - that's one thing I'd never expected with blogging that I feel like I'm still working on (and will be forever)! Best part definitely has to be all of the friendships :)

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  11. I love this post! Just found your blog from Biana's BLoved Boston. #5 has been on my mind lately! Great tips...i've been blogging for about seven months so I love seeing tips from people that have more experience than me.
    Traci
    waltzmetoheaven.com

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  12. Great tips! As a new blogger I am always looking for pointers from fellow bloggers who have been doing this for awhile. Thanks for sharing!

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  13. I love this. It's great advice. I'm a new blogger so its something I needed to hear.

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